Dark Sister

by Graham Joyce

  "Most certainly I have, though—"

  "Though what, Mr. Boyers?"

  Maggie was astonished. The judge was teasing the barrister, giving him the run-around. She looked at her solicitor, and Alice Montague winked.

  "Though what I would say, Your Honour, is that—"

  "And did you not find the application of said dock leaf to said nettle sting an effective remedy?"

  "Yes, Your Honour, most effective."

  "And if your wife told your children to use this method of relief, would that make her a bad mother? No, Mr. Boyers, it won't do." The judge turned his nose up at the contents of the box and waved it away. "Can we have this removed?"

  Alex's barrister lifted something else from his bench and handed it to one of the court ushers. "If Your Honour would care to study this, then I assure Your Honour that he might look at the contents of the box in a somewhat different light."

  The case practically closed itself from that moment. What the barrister had given the judge was a photograph, taken at night, showing Maggie romping naked on the heath inside a stone circle. She appeared to be dancing, and the expression on her face suggested some delirium. In the background, smiling demoniacally (it might be assumed), was a bearded man, Ash, also partially naked.

  The custody hearing which would normally be expected to last a full day was over by lunchtime. Alex was awarded a residence order, with no variation of the current contact arrangements.

  "The bastard's been having me followed!" cried Maggie outside the courtroom.

  "That's right," said Alice Montague. She was trying to comfort her.

  "But isn't that illegal in itself? Following people?" Maggie's eye makeup had run. Her face was like a cracked painting. "Surely it's illegal to follow people."

  Ms. Montague shook her head. "He must have commissioned a private investigator. That photograph—"

  "It wasn't how it looked! We were only—"

  "You don't have to explain anything to me, Maggie. At least try to comfort yourself with the fact that the judge awarded you good contact with the children."

  "Isn't there anything I can do?"

  "See your children as often as you can. Things might change. Maybe in the future you'll be able to work out some improved agreement."

  "Agreement? After the way he's behaved today? I couldn't care if he stops breathing! You're married to someone all this time and you think you know the best and the worst of them. But you don't! You're living with a stranger. How could he have done this to me, whatever the arguments? It's unforgivable! I don't want an agreement! I want him dead for doing this!"

  "Try not to be bitter, Maggie."

  Bitterness. Bitterness was not something to be buttoned on and off like a coat. It was a cancerous spot, like a lump in the chest or a stone in the throat. It deposited a taste in the mouth which wouldn't wash away. Maggie shook hands with Alice Montague and left the building, her high heels clicking angrily down the stone steps to the busy street.

  "Maggie." It was Alex, waiting outside for her.

  She paused briefly and flashed him a look before marching away, her coat flapping in the wind. Alex was frightened by what he'd seen in her eyes.

  "Try not to be bitter, Maggie." This time it was Ash, offering the same ineffective advice. Maggie had gone back to Omega, and he'd shut up shop to spare time to try and console her.

  "Everyone tells me not to be bitter. But it's easy for you to say that."

  Maggie sat looking oddly composed. But she didn't deceive herself. She knew if she didn't project a composure of sorts she would break something. She had to shut down her feelings, but even so she felt them working, agitating, trembling at hideous depth, like molten lava. Some rage inside her was loose and shifting, dissociating from herself.

  "Yes, it's easy for me to say that," said Ash. "But it's also easy for you to give in to the kind of thoughts you're having right now."

  "We can't all be so noble."

  Ash let that one go. He handed her a cup and saucer. She hadn't looked him in the eye since she'd come into the shop. He was a little afraid of her. The appearance of her anger was too cold. "Look, you've lost a legal fight, but you've got access to the children. Think positive. There are other ways you can make this work for you."

  "That's right." She suddenly turned to face him. "There are other ways."

  "No," said Ash, realizing. "That's not what I meant. I was talking about using your access time creatively. Getting the most out of it, I know what you're thinking, and you'd better put away those ideas right now."

  "A lot of other ways."

  "I tell you, Maggie, it's a wrong path. A wrong path. It'll come back on you. Are you listening to me, Maggie? Maggie?"

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Liz was kneeling over her doorstep, whetting a wooden-handled knife on the stone threshold. It was a knife so old it had lost half its blade width on a lifetime's sharpening. A low, throaty singing emanated from her as she worked. Her voice wobbled with the vibrato of age, but Liz could still hold to a melody.

  She become a rose A rose all in the wood And he become a bumblebee And kissed her where she stood

  She become a hare The hare run down the lane And he become a greyhound dog And fetched her home again.

  A shadow fell over her threshold and she looked up.

  "Here she is."

  "Here I am."

  "Know'd you was coming." Liz went on whetting her knife on the step. "Where's that lovely little gel? Ain't you brung her to see me?"

  Maggie stepped over her and went inside to make a brew. "I've lost her. I've lost both the children." Liz stopped what she was doing.

  "Lost? What's all this talk of lost?"

  Maggie bit her lip and explained the consequences of the court decision.

  "Why," said Liz, "that's not lost. You proper turned me over when you said as they was lost. I thought they was dead. Nothing and no one's lost until they're dead."

  "I want them back, Liz!"

  "And so you shall have them back. But not by bleating about it, you won't."

  "Will you help me?"

  "I'll not."

  "But you could, Liz. You could help me get my children back."

  "And I've told you I'll not. I knows what you've got a mind to do, and it's nowt to do wi' me, but I'll tell you this: stay off of it."

  "You don't know what I've got in mind. Why do you say you do?"

  Liz straightened her bent back and waved the knife at Maggie. "I know more than you think. You mark it. More than you think. I knows what you put on that husband o' yours, and on his fancy woman. That's surprised you, hasn't it? And you think yourself clever; but never mind, because that was no more than justice. Justice. But this other, it's wrong path. Now I've telled you and I'll say no more. But you mark it."

  Maggie looked away. In one sense she was surprised by what Liz had known about her activities, but in another way she'd always recognized that Liz had a sight beyond her own.

  "Did you mark it?" Liz demanded.

  "Yes," said Maggie, like a sulky schoolgirl.

  "Good. Now fetch my coat and we'll go for a blow in the fields. For I don't like you coming in my house with all this on you. I don't like it one bit."

  They walked along the edge of a sparse copse and across a field. Liz's old collie trotted ahead of them.

  "Spring not far off," said Liz. "Smell it?"

  "Yes. It's in the air."

  "Not in the air. In the ground. In the growing. That's what you smell. Feel better for a blow?"

  "Yes, I do feel better."

  "Blow away some o' that what's a-settled on your shoulder." She pointed her stick at a plant with a yellow flower not unlike a dandelion head. "Coltsfoot. Earliest I ever seen coltsfoot. Weather's a-changing. Get me some o' that. Good for the lungs. Coughs. Very good."

  Maggie stooped and picked the plant by the root. "What do you know about shapeshifting?"

  "Psssshhhhtttt!" went Liz. She still hated anything mentioned op
enly.

  Maggie ignored her. "That diary of mine, the one I told you about. It mentions it. It says that, well, it's the way to true power. Is that so?"

  Liz walked on, tight-lipped.

  "I mean, have you ever done it?"

  Liz stopped. "Wouldn't tell you if I had. And there's an end to your questions, ain't it?"

  "But why not?"

  "I don't know who you might tell. You might be a blabbermouth for all I know."

  "Look here, Liz. All the time I've been coming to you I haven't said a word about anything to anyone. And if you know half what you claim to know, you'd know that."

  Liz chuckled to herself, and flicked her stick in the direction of a wooden stile. "Let's head up there. You can collect me some firewood as we go."

  Maggie was accustomed, and never objected, to being used as a pack mule on these walks. She collected a few logs and stacked them under her arm.

  "No no no," said Liz. "You still don't know your wood. That 'un won't burn. A one should know her wood. Here:

  Oak shall warm you well

  That's old and dry

  Logs of pine do sweetly smell

  But sparks will fly

  Birch will burn too fast

  Chestnut scarce at all

  Hawthorn logs be good to last

  Cut them when leaves fall

  Holly log it burns like wax

  You may burn 'em green

  Elm logs like to smouldering flax

  No flame to be seen—

  Are you listening?"

  "Yes, Liz."

  "No you ain't. You're letting things play. And you ain't a-listening."

  Liz leaned and Maggie hoisted herself on the stile, and they were quiet for a few minutes. Then Liz said something Maggie didn't understand.

  "I was thinking how I might tell it you all. I was even thinking how I might give you the line when my time comes. And that can't be long. But I don't know, gel; there's a hardness in you of late. Today you're as tight as a drum, and I don't know." Liz looked off into the trees.

  Maggie said, "But I only wanted to ask you if it was possible. This shapeshifting. To ask you if you'd ever ..."

  She tailed off because this time it was Liz who wasn't listening. She was gazing at a blackbird perched on an elm branch not six feet away. Perfectly still, its feathers were sleek and black, its beak a brilliant orange. Its head was cocked, its eye fixed on Liz's eye; or maybe Liz's brilliant gaze had skewered the bright eye of the bird. Nothing needed to be said. Maggie had her answer. The old woman had shifted in her time. She knew the way, and she had the wisdom of transcendent experience. She had tasted the flame many, many times.

  The blackbird flew away.

  "Put this thing out of your mind," said Liz, "and concentrate on them children o' yours. I'm worried you're bringing a shadow over them. Who knows. Maybe it's better if you don't see 'em for a while. But if you really want them back, then go and talk to him. Talk. That's the proper way. Folk must talk."

  Liz moved off without looking back to see if Maggie was following. Maggie trailed at a short distance. They climbed the gentle incline of a hill, and Liz seemed lost in deep thought.

  "Come to me on Saturday morning," she said at last, "and I'll give you what you need for the shifting."

  "Shall I bring the children?"

  "Leave 'em where they are."

  "I thought you wanted to see Amy?"

  "And I said not."

  Maggie didn't argue.

  THI RTY-FIVE

  Fifteen miles. It was fifteen miles from Church Haddon to town, and then fifteen miles back again. That, she considered, was a tidy step, and with her arthritis it might even finish her off. But it had to be done.

  Old Liz had already covered the first three miles and was stroking her stick through the hedgerow. "Come out, felon. Come out, old uncle harry." The mugwort was common, but not being in flower for some months yet, it was difficult to locate. She was in sore need of it, if she was going to survive this hike. "Come out, felon."

  Three times already Liz had detected the plant, but she'd rejected each specimen. "There, there, uncle."

  Liz had woken that morning, dawn's light breaking in through the uncurtained window, certain that Maggie's children were in danger. "Amy and Sam," she'd muttered, hauling herself out of bed. "We must look to Amy and Sam. Yes."

  At times like these, she'd thought ruefully, she could have done with a ride in Ash's car, or even on someone's motorcycle. Those engines, she would have been the first to admit, were better than any amount of craft. Certainly she could have telephoned Ash; she had his number on a scrap of paper somewhere. But if she were to involve Ash, then he would tell Maggie, and all would know and all would be known and she might just as well stay at home.

  No.

  She would have to walk.

  That fifteen miles and back would have been a trifling thing in her younger days. She would have taken it at a clip. But this arthritis and this bad hip, well, it held her up. And she didn't have a lot of time.

  Old Liz didn't even consider the matter of breaking her appointment with Maggie. These other things were too important. Maggie could make her own way. Anyway, it wasn't for Maggie she was doing this, it was for those children. Liz had woken up vexed by what she'd seen in those children.

  Liz had known Maggie would bring trouble from that very first afternoon she'd arrived at the house. What power she'd seen in her that day, Maggie hovering on the threshold, unaware that Liz was watching from behind, what potential! For a moment Liz had been afraid, surprised and afraid. She'd had to stoop down and pick a bit of something that day, to keep Maggie back until she'd got her full measure. Then she caught on how Maggie had no idea of her own capacity; it was all corked, but like a cork leaking under pressure of volatile, fizzing elements. For a moment Liz's heart had leaped, thinking Nature had sent her a little sister; but then she'd had to quiet herself with the realization it was impossible.

  Maggie hadn't got a clue! And that made her a danger. One voice inside Liz told her to have nothing to do with the girl Ash had sent her; but another part of her had spoken up, and yes, she'd seen the fine qualities in Maggie; and didn't she herself have a need of at least someone?

  A little sister, to make the pass? No, Maggie wouldn't do for that. But for Liz, there were no others of potential in sight. Not a one. And there was no greater crime, no uglier sin than to go to the grave without having passed on the know. This was sacred when all things were profane, and as Liz knew in her aching limbs and in the groaning of her joints, every day the Old Enemy drew ever nearer. No, Maggie could not be the one to take the pass, but there were other possibilities. The next best thing was to give her a bit of instruction. It wasn't enough, it wouldn't satisfy, but what else was there?

  Liz was eighty-three years old. She didn't want to guess how many more years might be hers. But it had gnawed at her for a long time now that she might die never having found a little sister. Was it a punishment, she wondered, for the misdemeanours of her early years? She would rather have faced the torments of any Christian hell than allow that to happen.

  So when Maggie had first appeared, Liz saw a rightness in it, a compromise, and also a sign that she herself was not much longer for this world, and she resigned herself to the idea. But then the shadow had crept over Maggie, and Liz had begun to have her doubts. The know was for those who struggle with purity of heart. Wasn't that how she'd been taught? The craft was not to be sullied by sourness of motive. Even with right intention, the path was fraught and dangerous.

  But thankfully she was able to see past Maggie. Past and beyond. There was hope, like a crystal glimmering in the dark hedgerow shadows, and Liz could see it.

  "Come out, felon herb!"

  Liz found a young plant under the hedgerow. It was leaning northwards, a detail that had her nodding with satisfaction. She drew a sharp penknife from her pocket and unearthed the mug-wort by the root. Then she sat down on the grass.

&nbs
p; It was still early. The grey clouds were streaked with bands of white light, and the day could go either way. Liz stripped the fibrous roots from the plant with her knife and cleaned the stem with her spittle. Then she took a small vial of oil from her pocket. Pouring the yellow oil, she massaged it into the stem with her leathery fingers. The stem turned brown and the sap bubbled to the surface. Liz looked about her to make certain no one was watching, and kicked off her shoes. She cut a chunk of the stem with a knife and put it in her mouth, chewing vigorously while removing her thick socks. Still chewing, she stripped the leaves and rubbed them vigorously into the soles of her feet. When this was done she stuffed the crushed leaves into her shoes, saving a few which she rammed into her pocket. Then she put her shoes and socks back on, stood up and set off again.

  Maggie arrived at Liz's cottage at around ten o'clock. She pushed at the door handle, expecting it to swing open, but was surprised to find the door locked. Liz's collie barked at her from behind the door, but she knocked anyway. There was no answer.

  Odd that Liz should have locked her door; Liz never locked her door. Even when she went out on one of her walks across the fields she tended to leave it ajar. She had no fear of burglars or intruders, and, as she said herself, she had "nothing worth pinching, 'cept a bucket of shit in the outhouse." Maggie knocked again. Getting no response, she stepped over to the window to take a peek inside.

  It had been inconvenient for her to visit Liz this morning. The old woman had insisted she shouldn't bring the children with her, and this had necessitated a telephone conversation with Alex to change the standing arrangement. Since the hearing, Maggie had been stiff and formal with Alex, collecting and returning the children exactly as agreed, even though Alex claimed to want to be generous and flexible with the arrangement.